As speeches go, it was short (6 min) and it was focused. There were a few good (read -> zinger) lines. There was no hysteria, no whiny voice, no stridency.

Her words reminded me of the dystopian world of Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, a future where America is run by a totalitarian Christian theocracy. For example:

During this campaign, we’ve heard about the two profoundly different futures that could await women—and how one of those futures looks like an offensive, obsolete relic of our past. Warnings of that future are not distractions. They’re not imagined. That future could be real…. [It could be an] America in which access to birth control is controlled by people who will never use it…

Listen to the speech:

Fluke got Limbaugh’s attention because she testified before a Democratic hearing on women’s health. The Republicans — leaders of the House — had no women testify at an earlier hearing.

So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.

But he was just warming up:

What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.

That’s a deliberate — read that as intellectually dishonest — mischaracterization of her testimony. As I wrote at the time:

She reminded everyone (Rush wasn’t listening) that birth control pills are often prescribed to treat medical conditions such as ovarian cysts. Once-upon-a-time they were prescribed to help with debilitating monthly cramps (personal experience) and excessive bleeding (friends’ experiences).

But that didn’t stop Limbaugh and others of making up their facts, “facts” churned out of their own libidos.

“When Sandra Fluke speaks next week, I wonder what they’re gonna drop from the ceiling?” He continued, “There’s only one reason this woman is speaking … so if you’re gonna drop something… ,” his voice trailed off, leaving the “something” hanging in the air, as it were. Um, was he implying the Democrats would drop contraceptives?

None of this is acceptable behavior.

But it was the reaction on Twitter after her speech that caused my stomach to knot.

We cannot remain silent in the face of such hateful rhetoric.

As I type this, I don’t know what we can do other than speak out and say “it’s wrong.”

WARNING: what follows is distasteful. Hold your nose. And if you have been a victim of sexual assault, just turn the page.